“But she is surely easy on the eye, aye?” he said on an ironic chuckle.
“Indeed she is. That is the crux of the problem. Temptresses they all be. If only they could tempt with their mouths closed.”
Jon laughed, slipping his knife into his boot. “I don’t mind the chatter as long as it’s about anything other than their gowns or the dramatic choice of whether to serve marbled bread or rye at their next tea. There need be substance to the conversation.”
“And milady Toni is anything but mindless,” Dannan agreed. “She was quite fierce on the back of the queen’s minion, was she not, lad? How do ye account for such bravery from a maiden who claims she’s nothing more than a shop girl?”
Jon heard the respect in his friend’s voice. True, Toni hadn’t made a single complaint as they’d trudged through ankle-deep snow—none of them had. But what she’d done with that dragon went beyond bravery.
‘Twas damn foolhardy. Yet, how had she known to break his wing? Instincts like that didn’t come from selling gowns—or “leggings”, as he’d heard her call them.
Something was afoot. Something he didn’t have figured out.
“I don’t know, friend. But she’s dangerous to us if she has no plan when she goes into battle.”
“Aye,” Dannan said on a nod of his blue head.
“And she hides something from her land—something personal and quite possibly painful. I cannot pinpoint what.”
“As do ye, Jon Doe,” Dannan all too easily reminded him.
His jaw tightened again, but then he relaxed. He wasn’t in any immediate danger from the queen or anyone else. Toni was. “But I’m not the one in need here, ogre. Toni is.”
“Oh, lad. Ye need far more than ye think. But for the moment, this is neither here nor there, as they say. In this moment, we must worry about the queen. What does she wish from our newly acquired maiden, and should we warn the other she-warriors about Angria?”
That was indeed a puzzle that needed solving. The shapeshifter in the clearing had been sent by Angria, he didn’t doubt that. He’d tracked enough in his lifetime to know their scents, their patterns.
Yet, what could Toni possibly have that Angria wanted? Was it truly a pair of shoes he’d never heard of? Toni had said her feet had tingled just before she’d jumped on top of the dragon. But for shoes to give her such courage? It was preposterous.
But worse than these shoes, who would Angria send in next?
It was obvious she’d put a pretty pence on Toni’s head. The henchman’s appearance was no random act. This worried him far more than whatever Toni herself was hiding from everyone.
Dannan yawned, his mouth opening wide enough to fit two people inside. “We must sleep now, lad. The morrow comes swiftly and we need be alert for the sake of Toni and her bonny friends.”
Sleep. Hah. He’d hardly slept since meeting Toni. The prior night before their journey began, as he lay before the fire, hearing her soft intakes of breath, his stomach had tightened…as had other places on his body.
He’d watched the sweet rise and fall of her breasts, wished to touch the curve of her hip, the outline of her full lips.
But to do so would only complicate matters. She was from another land—one he’d decided was quite far away, and she’d want to return to it once she’d been granted her happiness by King Dick.
Still, he railed against the idea she’d leave, and it left him uncomfortable and out of his element.
It was all just silly nonsense best left for those who believed in true love’s kiss.
Of which he did not. He’d kissed maidens aplenty in his time, and none of them did to him what the legend told. He was not a believer in the tale his mother regaled him with at bedtime when he was a child.
Pushing off the tree, he fought to ignore the soft outline of Toni’s sleeping body in the tent just beyond his and followed Dannan toward their beds.
Sleep would fix all his ills, and tomorrow, he’d find out what Angria wanted with Toni, finish their journey to the castle, happily drop her off, wish her well, and go back to his quiet life at the cottage with his reindeer and his crops.
That settled, he hunkered down beneath the rough blanket and closed his eyes.
Only to find Toni’s face lurking behind his eyelids.
His sigh was grating and irritated as he turned over restlessly.
Dannan chuckled from just outside the tent. “Count sheep, lad. It helps pass the time when a lass weighs heavy on yer mind.”
“Quiet now, ogre.” Jon growled his words. “Or I’ll see your head roll then mounted at the cottage!”
His response only made Dannan laugh harder, the squeak of its tinkling lilt still, after years of friendship, leaving Jon amazed. For a man so large, his voice was sprinkled with fairy dust.
“I bid ye goodnight, Jon Doe. May yer dreams be maiden free!”
Chapter 6